church schools and their fascist admissions policy

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i am currently choosing a secondary school for my son, i have not bought him up with any religion, he knows i am pagan though.
the only good schools in the area are c of e or catholic schools, it seems like unless you can go private or convert to a christian religion you cannot get a good education for your kids.
after a conversation with one of the schools this afternoon i understand that they do have places for non christian children but you have to be a "world faith" and proof from your place of worship is necessary. world faiths are jew, muslim, sikh, hindu. thats it!
so there are NO non-denom places available at any church schools.

can anyone else see the complete fascism in this ??
i don't exactly want my kids bought up christian but i want a good education for them. it seems like they will be shoved in the local non denom school which according to league tables means theres a good 70% chance they will fail their gcses!
has anyone had this issue before.

do you think they would have to consider my son for a world faith school place if i had some pagan priest write a reference for me.

Some bus services are subsidised, yes. Not everywhere, I admit.

The taxation argument is not ridiculous at all. You may never have an operation, but the hospital is there for you if you need one. (And who can honestly say they have NEVER taken their child to A&E?)

Let me make it clear. If state-funded council services, other than education, were to be partially divided up by criteria relating to religious belief, there would be outrage. For some reason people think doing it in education is all right.

Its called discrimination:

We have laws against religous, age, sex, race, disability discrimination quite rightly. I shouldn't be able to discriminate catholics being educated with non catholics so why should religions be able to discriminate on the grounds of faith.

Niecie, your second point is what I was trying to say earlier. If Christian schools are selecting on the basis of faith, how does that give them an academic advantage in league tables?

What is especialy insidious about discriminating on grounds of faith is that it's something the vast majority of people don't even acknowledge, let alone choose to subscribe to. That's the difference between religious arguments and things like politics and sport which also divide people equally vociferously. We on the non-religious side quite literally think there is no such thing as these deities.

If your local school admitted the children of Labour voters first or Manchester United supporters first, or vegetarians, you'd quite rightly think this was unjust (even though nobody can deny the Labour Party, Man Utd and vegetarianism all exist).

SS, Why should your child get in to a faith school if you have none?

I would not want to send my child to a school that went against everything I believed/did not believe in.

My DS1 goes to a church school and yes it is the best school in the borough but he is there because we are of the church's faith, parents pay towards the upkeep and running of the school, yes we have children of other faiths there, and religious education covers all faiths.

It is understandable you want a good education for your child, we all do, but why should your child be given a place in a faith school when you clearly do not want him to be taught Christian values at the expense of a child of that faith?

Why should there be non-demon places at church schools? It is your right to believe/ not believe as you wish, but if you do not belong to the church and you do not want to be part of the Christian/church then why do you think you should get to have a place in the church school, just because its the best?

If the KKK or taliban ran good school would you want to put your child there? No thought not.

Because it is funded primarily by our taxes
Why should there be selection based on religion when all religions pay for it, it is fundamentally wrong.

pmsl at non-demon

lol at 'non-demon places'

(I know it was a typo)

kimi, I see your point, but the issue at stake is that these are mixed state/church enterprises.

If it was a private school, then there wouldn't be a problem - it's the fact that for a large part of the populace, a faith-selecting state-school excludes them on the basis of faith/no faith, even though they pay taxes for the school to exist. That's the issue.

i have NO problem with non-state funded church schools.

It's a bit like apartheid. One rule for us and another for them.

No, me neither CD.

But non-faith schools use your taxes too. Why can't those with no faith send their children to secular schools and those with a faith send their children to a faith school.

It's a bit like saying

If you are not religious we won't collect your rubbish

or

You can only claim benefit if you are a catholic

IT IS NOT THE CHURCH'S MONEY! We ALL pay our taxes and they are for the greater good, not so some minority group can discriminate against the rest of us and keep us out of our local schools that we have paid for

Because they want to be able to choose the best school academically for their kids, like anyone does?

but cd

isn't it like saying there are 2 different lots of binmen collecting rubbish?

niecie

I have a perfectly good school 1 minute walk from my house but my dd is not allowed to go there because it is catholic

Instead I have to go quite a way (admittedly to a much nicer school) but don't you think it would be much much better if all the very local children went to the local schools? The upshot of all this is that one of dd's friends who lives overlooking said school playground was sent to a school 3 miles away, which in the London rush hour is no joke! Meanwhile they bus in children WHO ARE NOT RELIGIOUS THEMSELVES, IT IS THEIR PARENTS (and half of them are only pretending anyway let's be honest) from all over the place to take the places in this school

It is Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad I tell you

So should i then be allowed to set up a school only for eg for people who are not religious and ban everyone who goes to church? OOh no that wouldn't be allowed.

It's one rule for them and another for us

Apartheid

But the school is good because of its connection with the church. If you have no faith then to use this connection for your own advancement would be unfair to those people who have a faith, who contribute to their church and who pay their taxes too.

No in fact it is not as good academically as the one that dd has gone to. I don't want to use it for anything I just disagree with the principle of segregation on religious grounds.

oh for the days when 'choice' of school had not been invented and we all went to our local school without a second thought about league tables...

Would like to point out the DS1 went to look at all the local school with us and he liked this one the best, he is baptized and will be confirmed next Easter, I do attend church, so we are not playing at getting God, nor pushing our beliefs on DS1, in fact DH is not at all religious, you get him to church for weddings,funerals and christenings, DS1 goes to church, DS1 believes and DS1 is the one at the school.

In what way do they "contribute to the school"??? By sending their kids there of course, the same way anyone else would.

Religion should be in the home not in state funded schools. I personally know of a lot of hypocrites who only went to church to get their kids in to school. So how can that be a fair system?

And what about the arguement that why should my taxes go to fund grammar schools and single sex schools blah blah

Discrimination on both an academic ability and gender basis in some cases!

(I'm no good on threads like this!)

The argument that children are not religious it's the parents is nonsensical. No child ever chooses the type of school it goes to religious or not. It is the parents choice based on their means and beliefs and where they live.

And whether they can be arsed to be hypocrites and pretend to be religious